How To Get Your Boss To Buy You A New iPad

It’s new, it’s cool, and you want one. But you just can’t find a way to justify a new iPad purchase. Well here are some ideas that will help convince even the most crotchety boss that an iPad for you is actually good for him (or her).

Mobile access isn’t just for games and messaging. It’s serious business these days. One area that is growing fast is IT administration. Gartner says that 70% of Level 1 IT desk analysts will be using mobile technologies by 2017. Already there are many system and network administration tools available.

But impressive tool sets won’t convince your boss. You need to prove the benefits outweigh the initial, and on-going (assuming you get a broadband connection too) costs. Try these three reasons:

1. It’ll cost less money in the long run. Overall, an investment in an iPad will save on IT admin costs. You won’t have to drive into the office to fix every problem since you’ll have your handy, dandy iPad with remote administration tools. Less overtime, less money for your boss. Less overtime, more fun with your iPad (or family) for you.

2. You’ll work faster. So you’re at home when you get the call to fix an issue. Nothing will work until you do. But you were raking leaves, or making dinner, or watching the game. Even if you live close to your office, you still have to haul yourself over there. Meanwhile, business is at a standstill. If you had an iPad, you could simply whip it out and fix the solution right there. You don’t have to leave the couch or even miss a play. More importantly you could resolve the issue (insert your prep/commute time here) faster.

3. You'll save customers and business. Your website monitoring service calls you at 5:05 A.M. The server went down and none of the critical applications are working. Email is backing up, the database server is down, meaning your customer service is offline. The early shift starts a 6 A.M and if the systems are down there will be hell to pay. Still blurry eyed, you log in remotely (while still in bed) and restart the services on another server until you can get in to see what’s wrong on the first one. Your fast action saved the company’s reputation, kept the customers happy, and the first shift productive.

Could you do most of these things with a laptop? Of course, but an iPad is so much quicker and easier than using a laptop. No boot up time, longer battery life, less administration costs (licenses and maintenance fees), and of course you can literally take it with you everywhere. It gives new meaning to being “on call”.

On second thought, is an iPad worth all that? Of course!

Look out for our next post where we cover some must have system administration apps.

While you’re waiting, do you already have an iPad? Is it yours, or is it for work?